§ A petition of the gentlemen, clergy, and freeholders of the county of Norfolk, convened by the high sheriff of the said county, at the castle of Norwich, in the shire-house there, on Tuesday the 14th day of May 1805, was presented to the house, and read; setting forth, "that the petitioners beg leave to express their gratitude to the house for the steps which they have already taken towards the detection and punishment of those servants of the crown who have defied the laws, broken their trust, and applied enormous sums of the public money to their own corrupt purposes of emolument and power; and that in the name of a loyal and suffering people, the petitioners implore the house not to relax in their exertions; they intreat them to consider how patiently the petitioners have seen millions added to millions of the national debt, the rapid advance in every article of consumption, their burthens increasing, and their means of bearing them diminishing, in the just hope that while engaged in extensive wars what they contributed with cheerfulness would be be applied with fidelity, and as the law expressly directed; and that faithful to their first duties, the house have recorded, by the resolutions of the 8th and 10th of April, that the people of England have been grossly, wronged by lord Melville; and the petitioners humbly represent to the house the necessity of effectually protecting the nation against future depredations; and therefore praying the house, first, to investigate and sift to the bottom the remaining charges of abuse in the application of the public money, contained in the tenth report of the commissioners of naval enquiry, secondly, to examine minutely into the nature of those irregularities brought to light in the eleventh report of the said commissioners, and likewise 25 whatever may appear culpable or suspicious in any of their future reports: thirdly, to institute immediate and rigorous enquiries into the expenditure of every other department of executive government; and that in performing these acts of necessary and expected justice, the petitioners are persuaded that the house will take no other guides than its own wisdom and resolution; and that, warned by the example of detected guilt, and awake to the frauds which have been practised upon their own facility, as well as upon the public purse, the house will perceive the necessity of resorting to those principles which prevailed in the better days of our constitution, and of acting upon a system of vigilance and jealousy in preference to one of blind and implicit confidence in ministers."—Ordered, that the said petition do lie upon the table.